Covanta to acquire seven waste-to-energy facilities

By Anna Austin

Covanta Holding Corp. has signed a $450 million definitive agreement with Veolia Environmental Services to acquire seven municipal solid waste-to-energy facilities in North America, which collectively process approximately 3 million tons of waste each year.

Covanta has 38 existing waste-to-energy facilities, which annually process about 17 million tons of MSW.

The facilities to be acquired employ about 500 people, and are located in Long Beach, Calif.; Dade, Fla.; Dutchess, N.Y.; Islip, N.Y.; Montgomery, Pa.; York, Pa.; and Vancouver, Canada. The company expects to complete the transaction with Veolia before the year's end.

Covanta Energy also has a $500 million waste-to-energy project with Green Island Energy on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, to serve the province's waste disposal challenges.

On the site of a former pulp and paper mill in the Gold River region of British Columbia, the Gold River Power Project transforms 500,000 to 750,000 tons of waste to produce refuse derived fuel (RDF) and direct 90 megawatts of power to the BC Hydro grid.
Construction of the project may begin at the end of the year.

Covanta Mendota is the first of the company's eight biomass facilities to receive the VPP STAR. The Mendota biomass facility, along with Covanta's Stanislaus Resource Recovery Facility in Crows Landing, Calif., are two of only 70 facilities to earn STAR distinction in California.